Inducing Empathy: Pondering Students' (In)Ability to Empathize With an Aboriginal Man's Lament and What Might Be Done About It

Abstract

Empathy is a familiar term in social work education, although how to teach and learn empathy is not well documented. Equally, how non-indigenous Australian practitioners learn empathic regard for indigenous peoples living with the crippling legacies of colonialism is not commonly described in the literature. The primary aim of the classroom-based inquiry described here was to explore and reflect on the concept of empathy with social work students at a regional Australian university using selected real-life vignettes. These findings suggest greater cultivation of empathy is needed for respectful social work intervention by non-indigenous practitioners working with Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and, by implication, with indigenous peoples worldwide.